


The Lost Girl

by LadyIsabella



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Blackreach, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5279879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyIsabella/pseuds/LadyIsabella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Far down in Blackreach a figure moves silently...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lost Girl

Sinderion's Field Laboratory

 

A figure, hardly visible through the strange eerie blue glow that bathed Blackreach constantly, moved quickly and silently towards the laboratory. The figure was dressed in tight fitting clothing of dark leather, a hood covered their head.

 

The figure reached the metal door and, after a look around, opened it and darted inside. As soon as the door shut the hood was thrown back to reveal a girl, perhaps nearing twenty or so with a strangely plain yet unforgettable face, framed by matted red hair that was in need of a wash and comb. She drew a strong metal bolt across the door then crossed to the fire and stoked in back to life from the embers, adding a book called, 'Beggar' to the flames which caused the fire to hiss and burst into life as the book was consumed.

 

The girl's name, though she could not say how she knew it, was Ryalirda...though on the few times she had cause to tell anyone it she shortened it to Rya as it quickly became clear that most found it hard or near impossible to pronounce. Not that this was often. Few adventurers came down here, and those that did often fell foul of the traps or Falmer before ever reaching these depths...sill it had happened perhaps three or four times.

 

The first had been a band of intrepid Archaeologists with armed Orc guards, who were keen on exploring and studying the debate hall. After some tense conversation at a distance Rya agreed, in exchange for some boots, two loaves of bread, some meat and carrots as well as a bag of fire-salts, to show them the best way through Blackreach to the debate hall. She had stashed her goods then armed herself and joined their company. Surprisingly the expedition went well enough...though they had to deal with Falmer and their servants which meant explaining to the Archaeologists that the servants had to die...they could not be freed, they did not want to be freed and would kill as soon as they saw you.

 

Rya had left them to their research and waited for them then led them back and watched them leave. Although the expedition went well she later found their remains, some months later, in Mzinchaleft...killed by a mixture of traps and Falmer. She had said a prayer for them then taken what she could find from their corpses without a thought; she needed to survive and they had no use for it now.

 

The second time had been a lone adventurer, a man named Symeon, who had come to explore. Rya could not say why but she found him interesting and showed him much of Blackreach. They shared meals together and she showed him how to catch and cook Frostbite spiders, a delicacy that he made a face at then tried and loved.

 

A relationship blossomed over the weeks he stayed and they shared several passion filled nights together...The affair was doomed however and one day Symeon, thinking he had learned enough to go alone, went out while Rya slept and never returned. She found what was left of his body in the Reeking Tower...he had been devoured by the Frostbite Spiders.

 

The final time had been not that long ago and for once there had been no death! A pair of Mages had come from what they called "the college of Winterhold", which meant little to Rya, and said they were searching for lost books. She did not mention that she mainly used books for kindling and directed them to the Debate hall where she guessed, if any were left, that would be where to search.

 

The pair found a few tattered old tomes and were so pleased they left Rya with some potions and some stores, mainly consisting of hard bread and root vegetables but she was not going to refuse food. She stored all perishables underground, in a specially designed larder that was made by burying a Dwemer cabinet in the cool earth and covering it. It kept food for several weeks. Meat she dried first and salted if she could get the salt then wrapped it in linen before burying it, the same with fish. Vegetables she normally ate quite quickly.

 

She managed to grow some potatoes, though the soil was thin and her crop was always small. Still she never starved; skeevers bred like wildfire down here as did the Spiders so she could always find some meat. And when she went up into the ruins of the Dwemer cities she always found the remnants of a bandit camp or some dead adventurer she could loot.

 

Some might have supposed her cold and unfeeling to the dead when she came upon them; she would never weep or show grief...she would merely loot what she could find and leave them for the Falmer or other vermin to devour. But she was not so, it was merely that she had seen so much death in her nineteen short years and all of it within the confines of Blackreach and the three Dwemer cities that she called home. She had never seen the outside world and what she heard of it was from travellers and adventurers.

 

Rya blinked as the book in the flames sparked a little, jerking her from her thoughts. She chewed her lip slightly then walked over to the stone desk where an alchemy station sat, covered in a layer of thick dust and cobwebs as she had never used it. She picked up a small mirror which she had looted from a dead Dark Elf some years before, and gazed into it.

 

The face that stared back at her would not have been considered pretty above ground. Rya's features appeared not to known the meaning of symmetry...one eye was slightly higher than the other and blue in colour, while the other was green, her nose had been broken when she was still a child and had healed crooked, her lips were often dry and crack as she chewed them when thinking, and to crown it she had a once deep and jagged scar running down the left side of her face from a Falmer attack over a year before.

 

Still...living where and how she did, Rya had never given her looks a second thought; why should she? Her brief encounter with Symeon hadn't made her consider changing herself...he had not complained of her face and in fact had appeared to love her for her personality and skills rather than her looks; perhaps it was the strange light that bathed her always down here that had made him see past her rather plain looks.

 

Rya shrugged and put the mirror back down then turned to the stone bed, covered with rags, clothes taken from the dead and a few furs; a rare find she coveted as they made the best bedding but she had only a few…a deer hide which was growing thin that she found close to the surface in a bandit camp, two wolf pelts found in a travellers knapsack and a small fox pelt from a fox she had slaughtered and skinned herself when it wandered into the city and became lost.

 

She lay down fully clothed, her weapons beside her at the ready and closed her eyes...within seconds she was deep asleep.


End file.
